The present invention relates to safety improvements in rail transportation. Specifically, a system is provided for avoiding train derailments and collisions with objects.
Trains are important vehicles for shipping goods and transporting people. Since trains often carry large amounts of passengers, cargo or toxic chemicals, train accidents and derailments can be huge disasters. Furthermore, because of the number of passengers and amounts and types of cargo trains carry, as well as the distances and terrain they traverse, trains are particularly attractive targets for terrorist attacks and other criminal attacks. In particular, trains are susceptible to accidents or attacks involving foreign objects, explosive devices and damaged sections of track on railways. Trains may collide with foreign objects, encounter explosive devices or travel over damaged sections of track, causing serious damage to the train and possibly derailment of the train. Serious injuries to passengers, fatalities and damage to goods aboard trains can result from such incidents.
It is therefore desirable to provide improved methods and devices for avoiding train collisions and derailments from colliding with objects and derailing.
The present invention provides a vehicle and system for preventing train accidents and derailments. More specifically, the present invention provides a safety vehicle that proceeds along a railway ahead of a train and prevents the train from colliding with hazards on the railway and derailing.
The safety vehicle and train each include a GPS receiver that continuously receives GPS location information and transmits the GPS location information to a computer in the engineering control room of the train. Based on the GPS location information, the computer registers the locations of the safety vehicle and the train, and then calculates the distance between the safety vehicle and the train. The computer calculates the speed at which the train is traveling and then calculates the stopping distance needed by the train based on the speed at which the train is traveling and the estimated weight of the train.
The computer sends acceleration and deceleration commands to the safety vehicle and/or train to control the acceleration and deceleration of the safety vehicle and/or train in order to maintain a desired distance between the safety vehicle and the train. The desired distance between the safety vehicle and the train is a distance greater than the distance required for the train to stop. The computer thereby keeps the safety vehicle far enough ahead of the train to allow the train to stop prior to reaching the safety vehicle should the safety vehicle impact an object, derail or detonate an explosive device on the railway ahead of the train, yet close enough to the train to maintain communication between the safety vehicle and the train.
The safety vehicle may be further equipped in one embodiment of the invention with a status transmitter that constantly transmits a status signal to a status receiver connected to the computer. In the event that the safety vehicle is damaged by an explosive device or an object such that the status transmitter is destroyed, the status transmitter stops transmitting the status signal. The computer then detects that the status signal is no longer being received by the status receiver and issues electronic commands to cause the train to stop.
If the safety vehicle stops for any reason, the computer recognizes that the safety vehicle is stopped based on the GPS location information associated with the safety vehicle. The computer then issues electronic commands to cause the train to stop.
According to another embodiment of the invention, the safety vehicle may be equipped with video cameras to give train operators a view of the railway ahead of the train. Video captured by the video cameras is transmitted to video monitors in the engineering control room for viewing by the train operators.
According to yet another embodiment of the invention, the safety vehicle may be equipped with front and rear bumpers constructed of energy absorbing materials to minimize damage in a collision.
The invention, along with additional features and advantages thereof, may be best understood with reference to the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.